A couple of high-profile road deaths in Cairo this year have put the issue of road safety in the spotlight. More recently, new flyovers and right-of-way road widening in Heliopolis have resulted in dozens of deaths,<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[i]</a> almost all of them pedestrians, due to the lack of pedestrian bridges, proper sidewalks, and adequate traffic control.
In 2016, an estimated 8,000&ndash;27,000 people lost their lives to road accidents in Egypt.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[ii]</a> According to the World Health Organization&rsquo;s road safety report (2018), Egypt saw a total of 9,287 deaths in 2016, ranking 19 of 22 countries with more than 1,000 annual traffic fatalities; India topped the list with 300,000 deaths (Figure 1).
Figure 1:&nbsp;The top 22 countries by road deaths.<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://api-aps.aucegypt.edu/uploads/tinymce/1653573406imagefig1 (1).jpg" alt="" width="500" height="410">
Source: WHO, 2018. 
For a more accurate picture, road deaths should be compared to road use, with deaths divided by kilometers driven, but as is true in other countries, this data is not collected in Egypt. A less accurate measure&mdash;though still more illustrative than the absolute number of deaths&mdash;is obtained by dividing the number of deaths by the number of vehicles on the road. Using this indicator, Egypt climbed to 9th place with 939 deaths per million vehicles (D/MnV) in 2018, while India dropped to 7th (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Countries ranked by deaths per million vehicles (D/MnV), calculated based on the number of registered vehicles in the top 22 countries by road deaths
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://api-aps.aucegypt.edu/uploads/tinymce/1595926918imageFig En 02 Intl DmnV.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="553">
 Source: WHO, 2018; calculations by the author.
The city of Cairo<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">[iii]</a>&mdash;home to two-fifths of the country&rsquo;s vehicles and one-third of road deaths&mdash;has a dismal 1,658 D/MnV,<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4">[iv]</a> which is more than twice the national average (Built Environment Observatory, 2020). Internationally, this puts Egypt&rsquo;s capital in fifth place. These fatalities are not inevitable&mdash;as WHO points out, &ldquo;road traffic crashes are not &lsquo;accidents&rsquo;&rdquo; since they are &ldquo;completely preventable&rdquo; (2018, p. vii). So how did we get here?
<h3>Ignoring pedestrians</h3>
Almost one-third of road fatalities in Egypt are pedestrians (WHO, 2018), which means that around 700 people are killed each year while crossing streets in Cairo alone. The main culprit is road design, which aims to facilitate vehicle traffic at the expense of all other road users. Very few traffic lights and pedestrian crossings exist on major inner-city arterial roads such as the Corniche, Haram Street, and lately, most of Heliopolis. A World Bank report (2019) estimates that 97% of all streets in Egypt lack traffic lights and 78% of streets do not have footpaths for pedestrians, thus endangering them during most of their journey.
The danger is exacerbated by high speed limits. The lowest maximum speed for inner-city streets is 60 km per hour (kph), which is very high for most streets. While this speed is rarely reached during rush hour, vehicles become extremely hazardous from the evening until the early morning, when both traffic and visibility are lower. Countries with much better road safety measures, like Germany, impose 50 kph limits on main inner-city streets, and 30 kph on secondary streets and on main streets at night. For some third-level local streets, pedestrians&mdash;not vehicles&mdash;have right of way.
A number of other new high-speed &lsquo;axes&rsquo; are already cutting through dense Cairo neighborhoods. These include the 8-km Fangary Axis that snakes through Shubra all the way east to Nasr City, and the now infamous 12-km Zomor Canal Axis in Giza, which grazes the balconies of a number of residential buildings (Samaan, 2020). If these roads are completed with the same vehicle-first mindset, both pedestrian deaths and overall vehicle crashes are set to soar.
<h3>Neglecting public transport</h3>
Although less than one-tenth of households in Cairo own a private car (Shalabi, 2018), the capital city&rsquo;s new roads are designed to accommodate private vehicles rather than mass transit. Globally, many cosmopolitan cities are seeking to reduce pollution by curbing the use of private vehicles and promoting mass transit and cycling (Barber, 2017). Cairo is doing the exact opposite. Granted, Egypt&rsquo;s capital receives the lion&rsquo;s share of the public transport budget. In the 2015/2016 financial year, EGP4 billion of EGP4.4 billion in total spending were allocated to Cairo alone (Shawkat &amp; Khalil, 2016). But this massive budget is largely misspent on expensive and prolonged underground metro projects, while cheaper and quicker alternatives are ignored. For example, while Cairo&rsquo;s metro lines are built at a rate of 1&ndash;2 km per year, bus rapid transit (BRT) systems that rely on dedicated road lanes and platform stops similar to metros are much faster and cheaper to build (Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, 2015).
Urban planning geared to private transport also reflects and exacerbates inequality. Low-income households rely mostly on mass transit and thus represent the majority of pedestrians in comparison to higher income households that primarily rely on private vehicles, whether through ownership, taxis, or ride hailing. I use the term mass transit to define all shared transport throughout the article consciously, and not public transport, as private microbuses are responsible for 37% of all trips, in comparison to 22% of trips by buses, an increasing portion of which are privately operated, and 17% by the publicly owned metro (DRTPC Study Experts, 2009, p. 38). In a country where one-third of the population is poor (CAPMAS, 2019), mass transit is becoming more unaffordable, as energy liberalization and privatization have spurred increases in fares that outstrip increases in income (Gad, 2020; Shalabi, 2018).
<h3>Local democracy or more deaths</h3>
As we have seen, transport planning in Cairo is completely inadequate for the majority of Cairenes, and more importantly, risks their safety. Egypt is party to the UN&rsquo;s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with targets aiming to halve the number of deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes by 2030 (SDG 3), while providing access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all (SDG 11). So how can we achieve these targets?
Current policies and laws regulating Egypt&rsquo;s roads exclude democratic citizen participation. The official code on road design standards states that new roads should be built while addressing increased demand, anticipating congestion, and supporting urban development and national security (Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities, 1998). Nowhere does it seek to improve the quality of life or decrease road fatalities. Experts draw up preliminary plans and submit them to the relevant authorities; citizen participation is recommended during the detailed design phase, but it is not required (Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities, 1998, pp. 68&ndash;69).
Road design, construction, and management are fragmented processes led by multiple executive agencies that are divorced from the residents they are meant to serve. The Ministry of Transport builds the metro lines through its National Authority for Tunnels and operates it through the Cairo Metro Company. It also oversees the Greater Cairo Transportation Regulatory Authority, which was established in 2012, but is still not operational, since a joint administration of Greater Cairo does not exist.<a href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5">[v]</a> The Ministry of Housing&rsquo;s Cairo Development Agency builds most large road works (vehicle bridges, tunnels, and inner-city highways) in the capital, such as the Zomor Canal and Fanagry axes. Traffic is managed by a department of the Cairo Security Directorate, which answers to the Ministry of Interior, as does the National Council for Road Safety, the main body tasked with improving road safety.
Even if these were municipal agencies, democratic local government is non-existent. Termed &ldquo;local administration,&rdquo;<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">[vi]</a> city government is merely a branch of national government in which the governor, mayors, and neighborhood heads and their Local Executive Councils are all appointed (N&eacute;fissa, 2009). And while Local Popular Councils are elected, their role is largely ceremonial, and in any case, new elections for these bodies have not been held since they were dissolved in the wake of the January 2011 Revolution.
If road safety, pollution, and overall transport efficiency are to be tackled in any meaningful way, the state must recognize the pragmatic importance of democratic local governance for Cairo and all Egyptian cities. First, Egypt&rsquo;s capital must be administratively and geographically redefined for its traffic to be managed. The Tokyo Metropolis, home to 34 million people, comprises 23 wards (districts), 26 cities, five towns, and eight villages. Similarly, a Greater Cairo that is home to around 20 million people living in three cities, ten new towns, and many villages must exist administratively. One possibility is the creation of one central administrative city comprising the urban agglomeration of the Cairo, Giza, and Shubra el-Kheima cities, which would encompass the densely inhabited contiguous urban area that lies mostly within the Ring Road on both banks of the Nile. Desert expansions east and west of these parameters would be considered separate entities due to their very low densities and large areas.
Second, each of these three sectors would have elected mayors and district heads and councils, ensuring representation for residents and popular participation in city planning. Third, at the regional level, a Greater Cairo administration should be formed representing the three sectors, with authority over all centrally managed transportation bodies that design, build, and operate local and intercity transport in the metropolitan area. These functions will be integrated at the regional level, with local branches liaising with the regional hub. In this manner, budgets can be streamlined, management can be much better coordinated, and future plans would likely be more efficient and feasible.
Third, decentralization would allow more fiscal freedom to balance local revenues with expenditure, especially on mass transit, which if priced at break-even or profitable rates, have proven unaffordable to the majority. For mass transit to remain a public service accessible to all residents, fares should be integrated between the service providers and heavily subsidized or even provided for free, as costs could be offset by the private vehicle licensing fees and fines. In fact, more than 130 cities have managed to make mass transit free (Fare Free Public Transport, n.d.). 
<hr>
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[i]</a> Right of way is the portion of a street designated for vehicular traffic. <a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[ii]</a> Estimates vary widely depending on the methodology used to calculate road deaths (Built Environment Observatory, 2020). <a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">[iii]</a> Cairo in this article refers to the Greater Cairo region, a contiguous metropolis spanning the governorates of Cairo, Giza, and Qalyubiya and defined by the cities of Cairo, Giza, and Shubra al-Kheima (Qalyubiya), along with the surrounding new desert towns of New Cairo, Badr, Shorouk, and Fifteenth of May (Cairo); Sixth of October and Sheikh Zayed (Giza); and al-&lsquo;Ubur (Qalyubiya). <a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4">[iv]</a> Figures for Greater Cairo comprise the governorates of Cairo, Giza, and Qalyubiya (Built Environment Observatory, 2020). <a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5">[v]</a> Greater Cairo is not a formal legal or administrative entity. Its urban agglomeration includes three major cities, dozens of villages and ten new towns, each with its own local administration. <a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">[vi]</a> Law 43/1979 on local administration.
<hr>
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